Surgical procedures on the eye have been on the rise as technological advances permit for sophisticated interventions to address a wide variety of ophthalmic conditions. Patient acceptance has increased over the last twenty years as such procedures have proven to be generally safe and to produce results that significantly improve patient quality of life.
Cataract surgery remains one of the most common surgical procedures, with over 16 million cataract procedures being performed worldwide. It is expected that this number will continue to increase as average life expectancies continue to rise. Cataracts are typically treated by removing the crystalline lens from the eye and implanting an intraocular lens (“IOL”) in its place. As conventional IOL devices are primarily focused for distance visions, they fail to correct for presbyopia and reading glasses are still required. Thus, while patients who undergo a standard IOL implantation no longer experience clouding from cataracts, they are unable to accommodate, or change focus from near to far, from far to near, and to distances in between.
Surgeries to correct refractive errors of the eye have also become extremely common, of which LASIK enjoys substantial popularity with over 700,000 procedures being performed per year. Given the high prevalence of refractive errors and the relative safety and effectiveness of this procedure, more and more people are expected to turn to LASIK or other surgical procedures over conventional eyeglasses or contact lens. Despite the success of LASIK in treating myopia, there remains an unmet need for an effective surgical intervention to correct for presbyopia, which cannot be treated by conventional LASIK procedures.
As nearly every cataract patient also suffers from presbyopia, there is convergence of market demands for the treatment of both these conditions. While there is a general acceptance among physicians and patients of having implantable intraocular lens in the treatment of cataracts, similar procedures to correct for presbyopia represent only 5% of the U.S. cataract market. There is therefore a need to address both ophthalmic cataracts and/or presbyopia in the growing aging population.